Origins of Philosophy Flashcards
(23 cards)
the love or search for wisdom
philosophy (meaning)
the intellectual probing of any idea
wisdom
the rational investigation of questions about existence, knowledge, and ethics
philosophy
____________ ask questions that try to understand the metaphysical and physical world of man
philosophers
___________ is considered to have developed as a form of rational inquiry in Ancient Greece
philosophy
A group of Greek philosophers whose writings contained reasoned arguments for various beliefs about the world.
Pre-Socratics
Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, regarded as first philosopher in Greek tradition
His inquiry into the nature of things extend beyond traditional mythology
Thales
was not solely a thinker; involved in business and politics
attempted to find naturalistic explanations of the world, without reference to the supernatural
Thales
- explained earthquakes by imagining that Earth floats on water and earthquakes occur when Earth is rocked by waves
- most famous belief was his cosmological doctrine; which held that the world originated from water
- saw water as an origin, never pondered whether water continued to be the substance of the world
Thales
“That from which is everything that exists, and from which it first becomes, and into which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, but transforming in qualities, that they say is the element and principle of things that are.”
*“For it is necessary that there be some nature, either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the object being preserved…Thales says that it is water.”
Aristotle’s Metaphysics
- If an object changes, is it the same or different?
* How can there be change from one to the other?
The substance, which is “saved,” but acquires or loses different qualities.
Taught: “Water constituted the principle of all things.”
- Viewed the earth as solidifying from the water on which it floated, and which surrounded it as Ocean.
- applied his method to objects that changed to become other objects.
Thales
Saw a commonality with powers of living things to act
Thales
the magnet and amber must be alive, and if that were so,
there could be no difference between the living and the dead.
defined soul as: the principle of life, that which permeates the matter and makes it live, giving it animation, or power to act.
*If things were alive, they must have souls.
Aristotle
was looking for a universal substance of mind
Thales
was personification of supreme mind
Zeus
after Thales, philosophers had tendency to
de-personify or objectify mind as though it were the substance of animation, and not actually a god like other gods
end result was total removal of mind from substance, opening door to
non-divine principle of action
Instead of referring to the person, Zeus, they talked about the
“great mind”
“Thales assures that water is the principle of all things, and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things from water.”
Cicero
Greek philosopher
Where the Pre-Socratics were concerned with cosmological questions, _________ was concerned with questions of:
-What is piety? What kind of life is worthwhile for a human to live? Can virtue be taught? What is justice? Is there more than one’s virtue? What is human excellence?
Socrates
did not write any of his ideas down. Only written information about his philosophy can be found in dialogues of Plato and Xenophon.
Socrates
